Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday June 03, 2013 @12:43PM
from the icing-thumbs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered what it takes to run a world class stable of pro-gamers? In a new profile, 4Kings general manager Jason Potter takes the time to explain his duties — they're remarkably like what's required of other sports managers. It's up to Potter to manage a team of FPS gamers scattered across the continent, getting them to events, arranging sponsorship, and even making sure they play nice together. 'It's a 24 hour job,' Potter says. 'If there is something that needs to be done, you do it.'"

Society would rather be entertained for a few few minutes/hours rather then give a shit about investing in the future of its country (children) by supporting the most important people in any society: Teachers and fix a broken indoctrination system.

The quality of some of the games being played? Chess takes skill, and a bit of dastardly cunning. There are a few computer games I've played where the gameplay can become akin to a high speed game of chess once both players are seriously good (Streetfighter 2 - alpha 3, springs to mind). However, on the whole, most games just aren't that challenging, and often luck and net latency are the biggest deciding factors in who wins (and I say this as a game developer myself). Then of course, if you mention compute

And the "most games" that you're describing wouldn't have pro scenes. AFAIK there are no professional angry birds players out there. The latency argument is why most of the big-name events are done over a LAN rather than the internet.

As for patching, I don't see how that's a bad thing. Different, yes. Personally, I like that games have become dynamic. Chess hasn't changed in hundreds of years, and so its strategies are pretty well thought out by this point. The grandmasters of today simply build on th

The difference is that no one owns the rights to Chess or Basketball, while companies own exclusive rights to Tetris and StarCraft. It's as if there were a Basketball Company LLC that could sue a city or school district for copyright infringement for putting a basketball court with correct dimensions into a city park or school gymnasium.

Building a league around a non-free video game gives the game's publisher the power to shut down the league at any moment. The Tetris Company has done this to several online falling block game leagues.

Well, that's unfortunate for those falling-block league players. But the original post was "I find it hard to believe someone can get paid for gaming." The ability of the game's creator to shut down an unapproved league doesn't really affect the concept of people being paid to play games. Many sports are illegal by law (gladiatorial combat, for example), but that doesn't mean that nobody plays any sports - they just shift to legally-approved ones. Instead of gladiatorial games, they play ball games. In

I don't see how these "approved StarCraft leagues" can have any longevity. Blizzard could kill them after a decade once StarCraft 3 comes out. Baseball, on the other hand, is stable enough to last generations.

It's easy to design computers that are good (or even close to perfect) at FPS, that's why IBM doesn't need to invest in it. I'm not sure what IBM's investment decisions have to do with anything though, are they the deciders of whats a valid mental challenge?

Even nightmare bots that have all the aimbot data on you are able to be killed.

But people like Esports for the intellectual interaction between one or more players and the game. If you think winning consistently against skilled CTF'ers is easy. I say go play quake live in a pro clan. Heck get recruited first. To a real pro clan.

Though I wager IBM can make some pretty brutal AI. And even simplistic AI can overwhelm individual humans in swarms with ease (such that it is dumbed down to kindergarten level in mo

It's easy to design computers that are good (or even close to perfect) at FPS

I have to disagree; while it might be trivial to design the AI to take advantage of being part of the computer (i.e., able to read plot data on player position, take advantage of the physics properties of weapons/environment), I'm hard pressed to believe there is a method of programming AI intelligently, where it could outmaneuver highly skilled human players on an equal playing field, without cheating (doing things and having knowledge of programming variables the human player couldn't possibly do or know)

A lot of it comes down to how fast and how accurately you can move the mouse and how quickly you could press the keys and buttons. If you made the requirement that any computer cotrolled player had to give their input through the mouse and keyboard using robotic hands, and only seeing through cameras, you would probably have a decent competition. But that's only because we don't really have robotics that are as precise as human hands. The computer would be easier to hook up to a trackball, and would probab

Wrong, humans do not act in true randomness. Humans act in what you conceive as true randomness. Humans always do what they are biased to do, even when random. To get a human to do a true random event you need to use another tool, like coin flip or some machine.

I also think your argument is kind of ludicrous... BECAUSE... the game is one big AI. The fact you can beat the AI does not mean you are actually better than the AI. It means that the game developers let you win so that you would not get down when y

humans have a power that no existing computer can compete with nor compensate for: the ability to act with complete, true randomness

Since when can no computer "act with complete, true randomness"? Take the 48000 samples coming from the sound card's ADC every second, hash them down to 1 bit per sample, and you end up with 48000 bits per second of high-quality entropy.

humans have a power that no existing computer can compete with nor compensate for: the ability to act with complete, true randomness

Since when can no computer "act with complete, true randomness"? Take the 48000 samples coming from the sound card's ADC every second, hash them down to 1 bit per sample, and you end up with 48000 bits per second of high-quality entropy.

But that's a predictable result... i.e., not random. Regardless of what audio file you use, the output will be a predictable series of bits, the hashes for which will be equally predictable based on the input bits and algorithm used to compute it.

Kinda the opposite of random from where I sit... unless the term has another meaning I'm not aware of.

Which is sufficient in practice for any game that's actually being played. The least significant bit of the pressure due to breathing, key clicks, speaker output bouncing off the player's head, and other sources of motion of the air in the room is an input source that neither the developer nor the player has any conscious control over. And even if you're trying to be pedantic for pedantry's sake, is the sound card's ADC part of the computer or not part of the computer? If it is part of the computer, then th

Which is sufficient in practice for any game that's actually being played. The least significant bit of the pressure due to breathing, key clicks, speaker output bouncing off the player's head, and other sources of motion of the air in the room is an input source that neither the developer nor the player has any conscious control over.

Ah, I see now - didn't realize before that you were applying the idea to the previous topic of AI intellect formation; in that case, you make a good point, in that taking random things as input can lead to a 'randomized' output... Nice. Very nice.

And even if you're trying to be pedantic for pedantry's sake, is the sound card's ADC part of the computer or not part of the computer? If it is part of the computer, then the thermal noise inherent in any 16-bit or deeper ADC is a hardware random number generator; therefore, computers can act random.

Ooh, that smacks of a higher philosophical, 'why are we here' kind of thinking, doesn't it? Sadly, I don't think I've had enough caffeine (or have had too much) for my brain to function at that high a level right now...

Computers can pick totally random numbers, they're called TRNGs (True Random Number Generator) it's a basic requirement of a lot of cryptographic systems as any bias significantly weakens the system. The example Tepples posted with the least significant bit of an audio source is one example, another common one is the thermal noise from measuring temperatures of internal components. If for some reason a machine needs a lot of random numbers, more than these common sources can provide in a given time, then

I beat this game. And gave a truly random answer to my youtube watching friend. 1st time. It was not a common number. I think some peoples states of minds can be set. Or I'm just a genetically engineered mutant. But yeah... you can generate a random number if you let the universe help. Requires a bit of insanity though.

But is humanity as a whole random... what about your neighborhood, or the nation, now thats a question... how random is the universe... badum tish...

The number of people who actually make a true living playing chess (and they still get paid today to do so) is really small.

So is the number of people who make a living for playing video games.

But I see a difference between getting paid to be good at a mentally challenging game and being good at playing a game where you "blow stuff up".

Why? FPS playing is a combination of physical and intellectual skill (mechanical skill at actually shooting the enemy, and intellectual at outplaying them by finding better positioning and out-maneuvering them). If anything, the fact that eSports is more heavily reliant on physical skills makes it vastly less surprising that they'd get paid for it, considering all the people who play conventional sports professionally.

Then tell me, exactly how many millions of dollars has IBM or a similar company invested to design a computer that can beat the best human players at what 4Kings plays?

None, for the same reason IBM hasn't invested millions in a baseball playing robot. Chess is an interesting mathematical problem, and the question of how much computer power is required to beat a human consistently is an interesting question in the area of intelligence and AI theory. The actual game in question is practically irrelevant. Chess was chosen because it's fairly popular and extremely thoroughly studied, which not being so complex as to overwhelm any current computer (unlike Go, for example).

A baseball robot would be pretty straight forward because the depth of the look ahead is not that crazy. What makes chess so difficult are its combinations and permutations. There is rarely a game with some many permuations. This means to win chess you need to be able to prune the tree to win. But how does one prune and optimize? That is the question and a rather difficult question. Chess is a form of poker for intellectuals.

But I see a difference between getting paid to be good at a mentally challenging game and being good at playing a game where you "blow stuff up".

And there's your problem. You don't understand the competition involved. Gaming can be "challenging", both mentally and physically. Is it as mentally challenging as chess? Well, that's a topic ripe for debate, given the amount of strategy and improvisation involved in many multiplayer games. Is it as physically demanding as football or boxing or any other athletic activity? No, but then neither is skeet shooting, which many also consider a sport.

Ok you got me, challenging "physically". Really how? Are they running on some excercise machine? For otherwise it is not challenging physically. BTW skeet shooting a sport? Many people would says, ehhh maybe not...

You would say "ehh, maybe not", and others would not. Hence my other point - if you don't think it's a sport, don't watch it.

As for physically challenging, do you consider fast-twitch reflexes to be physical attributes? Gamers spend hours a day honng their reflexes. No, it's not a test of brute strength, but it still counts.

In 1986, researchers isolated both the "at rest" and "active"consumption of calories in the brain. Since then we've learned quitea bit about brain activities, particularly as PET scans have beenapplied to monitor glucose consumption in the brain.

As a result, we know lots of things, including that:* energy consumption in the brain is related to learning. In otherwords, once you've learned something (like mastering that chess game),the energy consumption goes down.

* energy consumption in the brain is more than two times higher forchildren under age 4. This is no surprise because they are learningand building brain structure. The brain's energy consumption levelsaround age 10 to 12.

* IQ can effect energy consumption. After learning a task, lower IQpeople have to exert more energy to complete a task than high IQpeople who have learned the same task.

ENERGY CONSUMPTION=====================

Energy consumption by the brain is 230-247 calories, based on 17calories/gram and human brain sizes of 1,350-1,450 grams. Duringperiods of peak performance, adults increase that energy consumptionby up to 50%, according to psychology lecturer Mark Moss, of theUniversity of Northumbria.

While this may not seem an extraordinary amount of energy, the brainmay use 30% of a body's total energy, while being only 2?3% of totalbody mass.

Moss cites the original 1986 work of Siebert, Gessner, and Klasser onthe energy supply of the central nervous system in his thesis. Thethesis, particularly the chapter 1 introduction, is a good and notoverly technical discussion of what we know about brain activity,including descriptions of how PET scans are being used to monitorglucose consumption in the brain. I've linked the first chapter:

I am not good at SC2. I played some ladder and after a short time felt mentally exhausted. And to keep up the must look at mini map, must look at where my screen is, must look at my production tab, must give inputs, there is a lot going on. I guess were arguing physically, but I have to say it is interesting to me. I am sure there are a lot out there, but watch HDstarcraft on YouTube. He casts games, as any game caster would. I don't know the world top now, but if you watch real good zerg players it is craz

Then tell me, exactly how many millions of dollars has IBM or a similar company invested to design a computer that can beat the best human players at what 4Kings plays? Yeah, I thought so.

I imagine IBM & others have spent zero dollars because hackers and modders have already done the work for them.For a FPS bot, you don't even need a good AI, just situational awareness and pixel perfect aim.

Really? Where are you from? I grew up seeing it happen, and my parents tell me that it was going on since LONG before they were born. I know it seems odd, even more odd that some of them command salaries that put them strongly at major CEO levels.

Surely you have run into this phenomenon, you have heard of Michael Jordan? The guy didn't just get paid for gaming, he got endorsement deals for shoes and other merchandise.

I agree, getting paid for playing games is rather mind boggling. Do you know that people get paid for playing baseball?

And there it is! The false analogy. [wikipedia.org] Flopped out on the floor like a dead fish.

Baseball, and virtually all pro sports have audiences that pay to attend, advertising deals, television deals, and ongoing source of income.

First Person Shooter games? Not so much.

When did you ever see advertising for such an event, a paying audience, a loyal fanbase, TV coverage?Most gaming events of this nature are more akin to self supporting bingo games where all of the money comes fromthe entrance fees by the players thems

Have a look at Twitch TV [twitch.tv] for a start. There they have live streaming of gaming "events", with commentators, advertisers, sponsors, recaps, replays... It is truly no different than professional sports or these televised poker competitions.

I find it a sad little world, watching other people playing a video game(especially such lame ones), but it does exist and is increasingly popular. Truth be told though, I don't feel very much different about professional sports. Sitting and watching other people play a game is of no interest to me, unless I have some attachment to the game like my own son playing. I'd rather read obfuscated javascript than watch NFL football.

But millions of people love watching NFL football and a rapidly growing number like watching "professional" video gaming.

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in litera

Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game.

You could copywrite a rule book defining those things. But that does not mean someone couldn't just get another author to write one and call the 'field' the 'playing square' instead. Particularly if the rules are sufficiently paraphrased I don't think there would be too much of an issue. Call it the "grid". Or even use things that can't be easily trademarked. There were

After reading your article I can see were your coming from. I am not a lawyer but I would rule the shapes of the blocks in tetris to be "devices" in playing the game. I disagree with the ruling. But that doesn't invalidate your point. Tis sad in my opinion to see the laws used this way.

People will get fun from whatever they get fun from; I don't understand a lot about watching sports or e-sports, but I'll try to share what I do.

My whole family played tennis while I went through high school. We'd sit and do homework with tennis on in the background. It's an easy way to learn plays, terminology and observe proper form. I got involved in local poker tournaments as a place to hang out with people, in a game that involves a good deal of strategy, but found I did not have the patience to watch

I would add, I never thought about it, but I got better a SC2 after watching pros, and hearing the build order mentioned. I found out I had jumped pas my friends, and I didn't realize it. Watching reply's like the pros do does help.

I don't know about whatever game that 4Kings plays. However, League of Legends has a functioning league, complete with player salaries, endorsement deals, ads, and yes, a large and loyal viewer audience. And don't get me started on the Koreans.

The "akin to bingo" system is true when there's no audience. But as gaming grows more mainstream, the audience comes with it. With the audience come all the other bells and whistles you mentioned with regard to baseball.

As far as American culture goes, you're right though, I watched a Halo tourney once and couldn't finish it because it was just well... boring. Playing Halo = fun, watching "pro's" play it = boring. Some Starcraft games were fun to watch on youtube back when I played it.

They also have several major multi-game pro-gaming tournaments. People show up to those like to events such as comic con for example.

If the MLB ceases broadcasts, another baseball league can in theory start broadcasting. If Blizzard shuts down all StarCraft (1) leagues in favor of its new official StarCraft II league, no one can until most of us are dead.

The MLB actually owns the copyright, ceasing broadcasting is not enough, they'd have to relinquish the copyright or grant permission for somebody else to do it. Same thing applies to Blizzard & the GSL. Blizzard has given permission to the GSL to do its thing.

On broadcasting games between MLB teams in MLB venues. A parallel league would have non-MLB teams in non-MLB venues, just as the pre-merger American Football League, the USFL, and the XFL ran alongside the NFL. Or do you claim that MLB actually has some sort of government-enforced exclusive right over the game of baseball itself and that all minor-league, collegiate, high school, and Little League/Wildcat baseball teams are licensees? If so, I'd love to see a citation.

The GSL is a "pro" league the equivalent of pro baseball, are there other pro baseball leagues besides the MLB you're aware of?

If say the Yankees wanted to play in another league, they wouldn't be able to under the Yankees and players would have to term their affiliation with the organization as MLB owns the copyright to that before they could be broadcasted in another league on another team.

There are the minor leagues. The American League arose from one of these minor leagues in 1901 and existed as a second major league alongside the National League for just shy of a century before the NL and AL finally merged into MLB in 2000. Most minor league teams have a farm affiliation with an MLB team, but there are independent minor leagues [wikipedia.org] especially in the northeastern United States. And there are leagues in other countries, which would be forbidden without MLB's permission if baseball were copyright

CS:GO is televised, as is Starcraft II. Pricesums etc come from sponsors. Players at the top level are salaried, either full-time or part-time, teams just below that level still receive sponsorship for travels etc.

Oh, you're in the US? Well, that scene is FUCKED, because people there feel that they shouldn't train before they have sponsorships. Add to that the fact that you have teams like Evil Geniuses, which is a pure entertainment company. They are always

When did you ever see advertising for such an event, a paying audience, a loyal fanbase, TV coverage?

South Korea is where it hit critical mass with every one of those elements first, some time ago. Very few cared about basketball until about 50 or so years ago, and hockey wasn't popular in the US until after the Miracle on Ice in 1980. All popular sports start somewhere.

FaceBall 2000, an early first-person shooter, was on Super NES in 1992 supporting two-player split-screen play. It was a port of an Atari ST shooter released in 1997 called MIDI Maze that supported over a dozen players.

You phrased it wrong, which is why so many geniuses are replying with things like "i camt believe people get paid for playing baseball."

Nws flash: they dont get paid for playing baseball. They get paid for putting paid butts in seats. So, basically, i fully agree with the sentiment that i am amazed that there are people who would pay to put their butt in some seat to watch somebody play a video game, no matter how good that person may or may not be. Would i look in on a very good player? Maybe for a f

People also pay to watch people pretend to be other people every week. I don't see anyone questioning TV actors and actresses getting paid.

And marketing is a finickey science. I may not buy something simply because a pro endorsed it, but I could easily see why associating a player/actor I like with a product could make it stand out among a line of 10 other ones. Then, when I go consider which one to buy, it's quite likely that it would be one of the 3-5 products I consider (as I probably won't compare all

Challenge accepted. Wikipedia entry on sports: Sport is generally recognised as activities based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity. Wikipedia entry on dexterity: the coordination of small muscle movements which occur in body parts such as the fingers, usually in coordination with the eyes. Moving a mouse, clicking a keyboard, and using a controller all require dexterity. Therefore, gaming can be considered a sport. You can also look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport#Definition [wikipedia.org]

Personally, I look at how much training is required to compete among the elite of the sport, and how far off from the elite the average player is. For games like Golf, its amazing how much better the pros are than the average Joe who goes golfing every weekend. Most golfers will never break 100, which puts them about 28 above par. Which is just dismal. Compare that with something like darts, billiards, or bowling, where it's not uncommon to see a "pefect game". To me, the whole concept of an achievabl

I always thought of it like this.
No ball/no finish line...no sport. But I am not a snob about it...or at least I don't think I am. I am not passing judgement on anyone's pastimes...that just makes the most sense to me. (Ball and finish line has a very wide meaning here.)
Something can be a game and be just as difficult or require just as much/more mental discipline.

No ball/no finish line...no sport. [...] Ball and finish line has a very wide meaning here.

Older computer mice had little rubber balls. First-person shooter characters shoot little lead balls at each other. Capture the flag has a ball (the flags) and the finish line (the goal area inside your team's base). Deathmatch has a finish line as well: first to defeat enough opponents that their fainted bodies can be lined up to cross the finish line wins.

And there is a bunch of computer games that should qualify for being a sport in terms of physical skill required, competitiveness and sometimes even physical stamina more than a whole bunch of olympic sports.

..... and some people think 'sport' involves shooting the brain out of a helpless fox with a bloody big rifle (having ridden a horse for a number of miles, whilst following the pack of hunting dogs you set on the fox earlier that morning). To me, there is a difference between 'sport' and sport, and I'd say that e-sports is definitely a 'sport'.

The meaning of all things is variable and should be. Though if society chose to label gaming under another term than sport. Like you know gaming... But when played competitively the duel meaning is fine and sport is fitting again.

I prefer the word 'ePenis' instead of 'eSports' because it more accurately describes the situation:
Somebody's over inflated sense of ego who thinks they are good in extremely narrow/limited set of skills that the vast majority couldn't give a shit about.

But then again we're talking about a society where people would rather watch someone else's fake virtual life (actor) then focus on living their own.

I suppose Bicycling and Running aren't sports, then, either?
While we're at it, rule out Mountain Climbing, Hiking, and probably numerous other mere activities. No sport for you, nidi says so.
Ever see a runner grab a cup to drink as he passed by an aid station?
Ever see a bicyclist reach down and grab a water bottle and drink?

which is OK for Curling and Golf like he said but a very bad idea for Mountain Climbing, Running, and Bicycling!

Drinking while running is basically the point of Bay to Breakers, right? You'd be surprised, [coolrunning.com] a lot of distance runners also seem to like drinking heavily from time to time. From the link:

"alcoholic mile". you take 4 shots b4 it starts and wait about 30min. then you start and every lap you take another one. by the time we finished I ran about 2miles w/ swerving and whatnot!

As far as drunk cycling, check this guy out [drunkcyclist.com]. Notice the guy missing teeth in the pic halfway down. Does that count for anything?

for baseball you have to know what some of the stats mean, especially the newer sabermetric ones

the cool moments are watching a pitcher who gives up around 1.2 guys on base per inning allow bases loaded and then a grand slamor a pitcher who makes $20 MILLION a year but has been average for most of his 7 year contract go out and save a team's play off hopes by giving up a few runs against the statistically top team in baseball

the NFL and NBA need a non college minor league system. That are a few people in sports colleges that not only are limited in taking trades based classes and they also some times get joke classes as they are on the football team.

Actually, just like real athletes, it's better if you can keep your athletes focused on the game without energy drinks and junk food. Same for any other sports - sure you can get into an amateur league on beer and hot dogs but once you get to the middle to high-end leagues, you need a proper diet, discipline and training and especially when you go into the top leagues, nobody (even the fans) would approve of beer, hot dogs or energy drinks at anytime during the game.